My Favorite Drinking Place

Living abroad, one
encounters more than a few challenges and surprises on a daily basis,
and Japan is no exception. Social norms, particularly those involving
drinking, differ greatly here, and some of what's acceptable on a
night out in Japan would never fly back in America. It's not always
easy to know how to handle a strange encounter, but when something
unexpected happens, I try my best...

I’ve finished my
evening shift at the Japanese conversation school and am almost home
when a tall, slovenly man lurches toward me on the street. He’s
wearing a white dress shirt and jacket but no tie, and his dark,
thinning hair is tousled with sweat despite the cool night air. He
points an accusing finger in my direction and cries out “You!”
with a gleeful, inviting laugh.

I’ve been living in
Japan for just over a year, in a small city west of Tokyo famous for
its grapes and wine. Every day I put on my suit and dress shoes and
walk to my workplace, a tiny, six-room school on the fifth floor of
an office building above a real estate office and below another
school for troubled Japanese teens. I teach English to adults who
come in after work or on their days off; many of them also wear suits
and speak in formal, reserved tones when the Japanese manager is
watching. When the classroom door is closed, though, and we’re
alone in my three-meter-by-three-meter windowless classroom, their
postures relax and their smiles become brighter as they start to tell
me their real feelings in a foreign language. This divide between
honesty and performance is how Japan functions.

When I hear the man call
out I laugh too because in Japan it’s okay to yell strange
things at night on the street when the alcohol’s been flowing;
I’ve done it many times in English during nights out with my
coworkers. Like the classroom with its closed doors, the bars of
Japan are places of honesty where everyone is free to say anything,
and such honesty regularly spills into the street when the drinking’s
over. I tell the man, “Konbanwa,” with a smile and
keep walking.

But the man’s still
grinning madly and coming closer with a cheerful, insistent look. He
lurches unsteadily as if he might fall, then laughs again and points
toward my apartment building. “I live,” he says with his
mad grin, then balls his fist and makes a banging motion at the air
above.

I know now who this man
is—I’ve never met him, but I know him. He’s the
neighbor of mine who, weeks before, complained to our landlord about
my playing late-night music through the speakers I picked up in
Akihabara. The landlord in turn called my manager, who manages the
company lease on my apartment, and my manager then pulled me aside
for a very serious work chat during which I bowed my head in proper
Japanese fashion and assured her that I was in the wrong and that the
problem would never, ever happen again.

I’m still wearing my
suit and tie from work and the man across from me is still smiling
madly. I know that he knows who I am because I’m the only
gaijin in our building, on our street, and in our
entire
neighborhood, and we’ve surely passed each other dozens of
times in the bright gleam of the morning without saying Konnichiwa.
I’m also the only person in our neighborhood thoughtless enough
to play Save Ferris and Tragically Hip albums late at night while
dancing around my apartment, because when you teach at an after-hours
eikaiwa in Japan you need the nights to release the
stress of
the workday after all the lessons and paperwork and overtime are
finally finished. I don’t know what to say to this strange,
exhilarated man who’s caused me so much trouble at work, so I
again bow very deeply in proper Japanese fashion and say “Gomen
nasai” with great humility.

The man bows too, though
not as deeply, and smiles again, still laughing as he waves his hand
from side to side. “Okay,” he says, then opens his mouth
to say something but gives up and raises his hand to his mouth in a
drinking motion. “Together,” he says, swiveling his
finger between his nose and mine, then pointing to an alley behind
the bakery where the owner sometimes gives me extra rolls. “Drinking
place. Favorite.”

This man wants to drink
with me in some secret back alley izakaya but I’m
feeling embarrassed. I imagine how awkward it must have been for him
to call the landlord and how many weeks of late-night ceiling
pounding he must have suffered through before finally picking up the
phone. I remember my manager’s stern, uncomfortable face when
she approached me in the teacher’s room with great hesitation
(Ian-sensei, do you
sometimes play your music late
at night?) and think about how hard it must have been for her
to
have that talk, how embarrassed she must have felt when the landlord
called her, and how my late-night dancing has caused so much shame
and trouble for so many people just because I needed a little
release.

Now, though, that time has
passed. This man wants to show me there are no hard feelings by
bringing me to his favorite drinking place to munch edamame
over a warm shōchū that he’s probably going to
pay for while we converse in broken English and Japanese. After that
I know everything will be all better, so that after our frenzied,
unrestrained night of fun we’ll be able to nod and unabashedly
say Konnichiwa in the bright gleam of the morning
without ever
mentioning that night of drinking again.

But I know that I just
can’t shrug off the embarrassment of what I’ve done
because a stranger offered me a drink. If I were Japanese, maybe I
could, but I’m not, so I can’t.

I wave my hand and say,
“Iie, kekkō desu,” because I’m still
not sure how the Japanese turn down invitations. “Arigatō
gozaimasu.”

I worry that this strange,
already drunken man will be hurt and offended by my refusal, but
instead he smiles and laughs again; were I standing closer, I’m
certain he’d have placed his hand on my shoulder. He says
something I can’t understand and then gives me a smart salute,
adding, “See you” with another chortling smile.

I turn away and feel the
quiet stillness of the night surround me, the night I’ve come
to know and feel safe in, and realize I’ve done the man no
wrong by turning down his invitation because he also knows I’m
not Japanese.

Ian Rogers grew up in
New Hampshire and studied at Bennington College and the University of
Nebraska. He's taught English to Japanese adults and children, first
in Yamanashi, and currently in Toyama. His short fiction chapbook,
"Eikaiwa Bums," was published in 2018 by Blue Cubicle
Press, and covers the English-teaching experience more in depth. You
can follow him on Instagram at Ianmrogers
[https://www.instagram.com/ianmrogers/?hl=en]
or read his blog at https://butialsohaveadayjob.com.